Dan Smoker is convinced he would have had to plan a funeral for his father.

That is, if not for the courageous efforts of a group of hikers that included members of Colorado’s first football family.

Max, Christian and Dylan McCaffrey, the three oldest football-playing sons of former Broncos wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, and former Valor Christian standout Michael Mann were among a group of hikers Saturday who came to the aid of 72-year-old Dan Smoker Sr., who fell from the top of Castle Rock while hiking with his grandson, Eli.

“Looking back on this whole picture, I’m very confident that this group of folks saved my dad’s life,” Smoker said. “We’re indebted to all of those folks.”

Smoker was with his wife in San Diego on Saturday, a trip celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary, when he received a phone call from his son, 13-year-old Eli. The panic in his son’s voice was a clear signal to Smoker that the injuries his father — and Eli’s grandfather — had just suffered in a fall hundreds of miles away, on the top of Castle Rock, were serious.

“He heard what sounded like a foot slip, and then grandpa fell,” Smoker said, reliving one of the most difficult phone calls of his life.

Then, Smoker called Eli on FaceTime. The picture his son showed him through the cellphone video, of the elder Smoker crumpled on the rock, made him fear the worst.

Among the elder Smoker’s injuries: a broken neck, a broken femur, a broken pelvis, nine broken ribs — most of them multiple times — and internal bleeding.

“There’s not a moment in my life that I felt more helpless than I did right then,” Smoker said.

Luckily, two groups of hikers arrived at the location just as Smoker’s father had fallen. In fact, they were close enough to watch the fall occur.

“It felt like he was in the air for 10 seconds,” Christian McCaffrey told the Carolina Panthers’ team website. “I had never seen anything quite like that in my life as far as the trauma and the sound. We were in shock.”

The first group to arrive at Smoker’s side was Mann, Max and Christian McCaffrey and Christian’s girlfriend. A second group included a husband and wife and their two kids. The husband in that group moved to stabilize the elder Smoker’s neck.

For a moment, the injured man stopped breathing. Mann performed chest compressions, and Smoker began breathing again.

Meanwhile, the group helped comfort Eli, who was in severe distress after his grandfather’s fall. They gave him a phone to use after his had run out of battery.

“They were just letting him know that everyone there was doing everything they could to help his grandpa,” Smoker said. “They helped from there, after the paramedics were there, to get down and get into the ambulance and getting him to the hospital where his grandpa was going to be. They really did a lot.”

Smoker is convinced the actions of those hikers not only saved his father’s life, they also kept him from suffering paralysis. The elder Smoker was moving his hands and feet Tuesday afternoon, his son said. And though he was still in critical but stable condition and faces a long road to recovery, his family believes he will survive his injuries.

But it wasn’t just their actions on the mountain that have moved Smoker. On Sunday, when Max and Christian and Mann walked into the hospital (Dylan had to return to Michigan), Eli told his father that those were the men who had helped his grandfather. Ed and Lisa McCaffrey, and youngest son Luke, also joined to help comfort the Smoker family.

Yet, it wasn’t until a casual conversation brought up the fact that Eli might be interested in playing football at Valor Christian one day — “Well, that’s interesting because (Ed’s) the head football coach,” Lisa said, according to Smoker — that the family realized just who had helped save Eli’s grandfather.

“One, they didn’t have to do anything,” Smoker said. “I think everybody would like to believe that in adversity they would be able to jump in and act and do something. And they showed that they did. But beyond saving my dad’s life and ensuring he’s not paralyzed, that group as a whole, they sat beside us as a family to help us through this time.”

Smoker said that Christian McCaffrey has been texting Eli frequently since the accident, asking him about Smoker Sr.’s condition and whether there was anything else the family could do.

Christian McCaffrey, who is preparing for his second season with the Carolina Panthers, extended a standing invitation for Eli to visit the McCaffreys’ home and throw a football, play video games or do anything else he wants to do.

“Seeing the human side of these incredible athletes,” Smoker said, “it’s just really been humbling to see what they’re willing to do.”

Smoker said the feeling of not being able to help his father or comfort his son Saturday when the accident occurred left him feeling helpless. But unraveling the story of all those who helped his father has brought comfort to begin a trying period ahead.

“I truly believe they saved my dad’s life,” he said. “My dad has a very, very long road ahead of him, but the doctors at this point have shifted from, ‘If he recovers,’ to ‘when he recovers.’ But without them, we would have never been here right now.”